chilts.org
Andy Chilton
Entries for label: google
Found 17 entries.
Why Google Wave was a Failure
Dear Mr Schmidt,
Your quote on the BBC News article about Google drops Wave because of lack of users was interesting. You said “It’s a very clever product. You never know why it didn’t work”. Obviously you’re not as clever as you think your product is.
When Google Wave launched, the crowd stood up, applauded and the YouTube videos that were released made Wave look awesome. Instant view of what other people were typing, the ability to change your previous comments (and indeed, other peoples), the slider to see the history, being able to upload images and the ability to make lots of bots to run inside the thing.
The problem is, no-one wanted any of these features. Clever – yes. Useful – no.
The slider is only there since the complexity of the conversation was far too great. The complexity was far too great since you could reply to anyone anywhere as well as changing previous messages. This in itself is fairly horrible since the conversation then isn’t linear. Ever heard of why people don’t like top-posting on email? Uploading images are ho-hum, email already does previews for image attachments (and why do we need any more than that). All 'Chat’ protocols out there don’t do the 'show as you type’ thing – mainly because no-one wants it (how often do you type something and then delete it … lots). Finally, bots … more annoying than the ability to change anyone’s message … you get my drift.
Add to the fact that all the features you guys trumpeted as amazing, ambitious and new, was the slowness of actually making it work. And yes, even in Chrome it was slow. Painfully slow. Your whole company is based on speed, decreasing page load times, minimising JavaScript and CSS, having a minimal search page, updating old (HTTP) protocols for new ones (SPDY), making JavaScript go faster and deferring loads of content until after page ready … so why oh why oh why would you think a painfully slow application – such as Wave – should be any different to EVERYTHING your company stands for and yet be sucessful.
As for the things it was hyped up to do: Productivity – nope, it was too slow. Wiki(ish) – nope, it was too complicated. Conversation – nope, it was too surreal (after all, when have you been able to edit other people’s past conversation?).
Finally, it was immediately obvious to myself and the majority of my friends (that is, only two thought Wave was any good) that Wave wasn’t what Google trumpeted it as. It was in fact, a gimmick. A fun game that kept us occupied for exactly one afternoon, after which people said “Now I’m done, don’t think I’ll do that again”. Kind of like playing a new game only to realise that it has no longevity. No usefulness. No future.
So if it was painfully obvious to the rest of the world (ok, 98% of Wave users) that it was annoying, why wasn’t it obvious to you and your team. After all, you do champion measuring what your users are doing. If 98% aren’t logging in much after the first day, surely that’s a sign it’s not going well. I’m surprised it took you a year to figure that out.
All the best,
Andy
Inserted: 2010-08-07 11:53 (1 year, 6 months ago)
Reasons to Not Make up your Own Open Source License
If Google can’t get their WebM license right, then who can:
I did wonder why they didn’t just go with GPLv3 but I figured that Google usually like the BSD-style licenses. They have answers on their Licensing FAQ but still, it makes you wonder.
For example, I wonder if this is essentially the BSD license with the patent clauses from the GPLv3. That would be both interesting and cool, though I’d still prefer GPL over BSD.
Inserted: 2010-06-04 22:58 (1 year, 8 months ago)
Two Reasons Why I'll Never Install Flash Again
The first is pretty obvious. Now that I can watch YouTube using HTML5 features that means Flash is one step away from being chucked out forever.
And after reading this blog entry about the Google Maps API v3, Flash – as far as I’m concerned – is now out of the window. I didn’t realise but hidden in amongst a lot of other text are the words The most significant change is that Street View is entirely implemented in HTML....
I thought “No, surely not”, so I kept double clicking the map until I was sufficiently zoomed in to see 'Pegman’ and I moved him onto the road. Sure enough, in my non-Flash versions of both Chrome and Firefox I could see Street View. After twisting the view around, clicking up and down the street I was wondering to myself “I have no freakin’ idea how they did this, but I’m glad they did”. If you haven’t noticed already, I think the Flash version of Street View had two levels of zoom, well this one seems to have 5 or 6.
So yes, I’m a happy bunny tonight. Add this to the fact that GitHub also reimplemented their network graph a few months ago using the Canvas element, the future is looking decidedly bright (and very HTML5-CSS3-like).
Labels: html5, css3, gmaps, flash, github, google, street-view
Inserted: 2010-05-21 11:46 (1 year, 9 months ago)
Site now on AppEngine
It's been a long time coming, but recently I've been learning a lot about Google AppEngine.
It's been a very interesting journey too. Not only have I been learning Python but I've also started a new interest in schemaless datastores (key/value stores, whatever you want to call them).
I even gave a short and unprepared presentation to Wellington PerlMongers about one called Redis. That one looks my favourite so far but yeah, my interest started with AppEngine's Datastore.
Schemaless Datastores
So far I'm enjoying playing with AppEngine's datastore though I find there are some things which are quite finicky about it, mainly due to the Python classes that are being used to help stick data in and get it back out again. Migrations of datastore entities seem to be difficult or as yet some of the techniques to do it are unknown to me (though I have started a list of techniques to help).
Otherwise, once you get your head around not only the data being schemaless but duplicating data so that you can get faster speed and more scaleability, then you're on to a winner. Relations like in a tradition RDBMS are also out of the window though you can reference other objects so it's not completely gone.
Things about AppEngine
Again, so far most things about AppEngine I like, though there seems to be a few things which are harder than necessary.
I managed to find a peculiar bug in AppEngine the other day but still no answer on the Google Group. This is particularly weird as far as I can tell.
And of course, the perenial problem that if something is wrong with AppEngine, all of the developers at Google seem to disappear. And then appear with "Nothing was wrong". Whilst I understand why they do it, it's not great customer relations.
Yet at the same time, the pull of running a site on someone else's servers, that they administer and you don't have to do lots of SysAdmin work, is too great to be ignored. As to whether I'd use it for Mission Critical Applications yet, I don't know.
Overall, it's been a fun (if longer than expected) experience but I'm happy with it so far.
Finally, the CMS/Blog I have written is called Lollysite and check out the project home on Gitorious.
Labels: appengine, python, perlmongers, redis, google
Inserted: 2009-12-06 05:18 (2 years, 2 months ago)
Finally, OpenID for Google Accounts
Google has just announced that it is allowing OpenID for ALL of it's user accounts.
It's weird though since it is calling it Federated Login when in fact it really should state the fact it is is enabling OpenID (I had to double check just to make sure it was). Over on the Google Code Blog however, they're being a bit more technical :-) and actually saying so - Google Moves Towards Single Sign on with OpenID.
Overall, this is great news. Yes, Blogger has allowed OpenID for a while and there was that little test with Google App Engine, but this is what we've wanted for a long time.
There are very few companies now who don't accept OpenID and very few of the big ones (with lots of users) who don't provide OpenID.
So hopefully in the near future you'll just need one OpenID, and therefore one password, to log in to as many sites as you use. Of course, you'll be able to have as many OpenIDs as you want but that's your choice.
There seems to be some interesting things going on with each of the new people accepting Google Accounts by their email address rather than traditionally by their OpenID URLs. I suspect that this is just a predefined step over the first contact the website consumer has to do when first contacting the provider. I'll probably post further into why this is happening another time.
But anyway, that's beside the point.
Now all we need to do is make Google, Yahoo! AOL and all the others accept OpenIDs!
It's a long slow road, but we're eventually getting there.
Labels: openid, google, planet-geek, planet-catalyst, yahoo
Inserted: 2008-10-30 13:06 (3 years, 3 months ago)
Problems with Google Reader
It's a web service. Which isn't bad in itself but that means there are many things missing or broken which I CAN'T CHANGE!
For example, let's take a look at one of my subscriptions. I was going through them today and filtering out those I didn't want to read anymore. Every now and again I stumbled upon something which just hadn't had any updates for a while.
Take DabbleDB for instance. I can't remember the last time I read a blog entry. Surely they're still around? I looked at their feed URL http://dabbledb.com/blog/?feed=rss2 ... which redirected me to http://blog.dabbledb.com/?feed=rss2 (and ignored the param). I then found their real feed right here http://feeds.feedburner.com/DabbleDB.
Yes, they're still around and very much alive and kicking. So why didn't Reader tell me what had been happening and that the feed didn't exist anymore?
I suspect there are a number of feeds I added over time where I haven't read anything from them in ages and all because they have moved the feed elsewhere.
What am I to do about it? Continuing on from my half-baked plan to use on-line services less and less, I am about a quarter way through writing a small RSS Reader I can deploy onto my site (I couldn't find something that already existed). It'll only be small since it'll only serve one person (you!).
Already I have an outline plan and some code but I have a nice feature set forming in my head. It'll give you a lot more information about the feeds you read. For example have you ever wondered:
- when the feed you're reading last updated?
- when was the last time you retrieved it?
- how many posts have they done in the past month or even year?
And of course, this isn't on the desktop, it's on the web so you can read your feeds from anywhere. A nice 'Next' button in your toolbar would be handy, as would the ability to preview something instead of having to go there.
My plan is to be able to have your feeds public since that would be kinda cool, be able to click them and have it remember that you've read certain posts, and (thanks Donovan) I may even have something like a star so I can click interesting posts to share them.
Francois also told me about the Franklin Street Statement the other day. Whilst I might not actually pledge to it myself I do intend on releasing this software under the Affero GPL which will be awesome. Not because a big company will come and use it and therefore have to contribute back changes but so that anyone can use it and contribute back.
As I said, I'm just starting but hope to have something ready in a few days time.
As a final note, I'd like to say that I've been using Google Reader quite happily for ages and it has been really good. Now though I'm of the opinion that no matter how good, bad or indifferent a webservice is, it is always better when it is open.
Labels: google, planet-geek, planet-catalyst, rss-reader
Inserted: 2008-07-16 23:22 (3 years, 7 months ago)
Good News from Google about OAuth
It seems it is still somewhat unofficial, but Google intend to allow you OAuth access to your data. Excellent news!
It also seems that Google are planning to open up all of it's Data APIs to be OAuth capable, starting with the Contacts API.
See this announcement in the OAuth group.
Well done Google. That's a great step forward. Now let's see it keep going that way.
Labels: google, planet-geek, planet-catalyst, oauth
Inserted: 2008-04-26 22:14 (3 years, 9 months ago)
Yahoo! Turning! Itself! Into! Social! Network!
...but at least it is honest about it, unlike Google.
This new initiative by Yahoo!, the \l{Yahoo! Open Strategy|http://ycorpblog.com/2008/04/24/developer-welcome-mat/} is much like Google's \l{App Engine|code.google.com/appengine/}. Except they are being honest about it, unlike Google.
Instead of saying that you now have cloud computing and you can run on our hardware, Yahoo! just blatently said "make apps for our latent social network". I think that's really what Google should have said at the launch of App Engine because as far as I can tell, that's all it is.
So looking at it on the social network level, Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Google and now Yahoo! are all competing to be the largest social network. Amazing how everyone is base-lining at that (all due to Facebook's immense success).
I'm not a big fan about much of this though since it still doesn't help promote what I want.
Instead of competing social networks, I want collaborating social networks. As I've said before "data wants to be free" and in any of the sites mentioned above that is not the case. In fact, it just locks users in more to that platform. Also, it means you have to choose which site to write apps for, unless they already allow Open Social apps (Orkut does, but Orkut isn't that big a player).
Fair play to Yahoo! though since I think that this will be a great step for them. Still, I wonder what their next strategy is. First it was a web directory, then a search engine, then a web portal and now a social network. They seem to transform into whatever the current flavour of the month is. What's next? Anything but a Microsoft subsidiary!
P.S. And no, I'm not a Google basher, I just like commenting on where I see they're doing it wrong. You can't be mad at a company that is putting $6.5 million into open source this year. And no, I'm not a Yahoo! lover either, I left them a long time ago due to all the adverts in their terribly implemented Yahoo! Mail. Just so you know I play fair, GMail is awesome and Flickr is the best there is (except they now allow horrible videos - what a complete waste)!
Labels: google, social-network, open-social, planet-geek, planet-catalyst, cloud-computing, yahoo
Inserted: 2008-04-25 12:18 (3 years, 9 months ago)
Why Google App Engine Locks You in Even More
The original title for this blog entry was "What's the difference between Google and Facebook?" Answer: Google is even worse than Facebook.
Let me explain what I mean by that and then I'll tell you why I changed it.
Google have finally entered the cloud-computing world for us mere developer mortals, a whole two years after Amazon gave us S3, EC2 and other web services. If you're a regular reader of this blog, you'd think I'd be excited about this piece of news.
But I'm not and here's why.
Cloud computing, massively parrallel systems, distributed data storage and other things like that really interest me. What I want are the basic tools such that I can mold them, manipulate them and add to them to fit my needs. Basically, I want to use them however I see fit and I want to be able to do what ever I like.
But Google App Engine doesn't let you do that. It has some nice interfaces, yes, but in reality all you get are some abstractions built atop of Google's infrastructure. A lot of people are chuffed that they can now play with GFS and BigTable but in reality, how much of that do you actually see. Not much. It's just an API to you and me. An API written in Python which can only be run on Google's infrastructure.
So let me just recap that for you. To run your app on Google's infrastructure, you must use their code, their interface, their abstractions, their (single so far) language and their environment.
All in all it doesn't give you a lot of freedom. In fact, I don't see much freedom there at all. It's no argument that you'll be able to create great applications using all this infrastructure (think Gmail and Google Reader) but it's not that that I'm arguing against. You will have some slight leeway but really, why would you do it yourself when Google's way is just so much easier?
So far, I have told you that you have to do everything on their terms. Their language, their hardware etc but let me tell you something that concerns me even more than that.
It's also the fact that you'll be using their users. An API of their own design plugging in to their Accounts. You'd be able to do it yourself, sign up and manage your own users but in an environment like that, why would you?
This all reminds me of Google Gadgets - except you can write it in Python instead of JavaScript. You also get a little bit more functionality too but you're still using their infrastructure and their users.
I don't know about you but this seems like a bad idea to me. And now we're back to what this post was originally titled.
"What's the difference between Google and Facebook?"
Answer: Google is even worse than Facebook.
Let me explain.
Facebook has created a massive walled-garden of users, with high walls and plenty of pleasures inside to get those users in and not let them out. Hotel Calinfornia if you will except you can't even check-out let alone leave.
Keep the users inside, don't let them look at the rest of the web (in some cases, pretend it doesn't even exist) and just lock them in as much as you can. Facebook has turned into a horribly closed and restrictive site. That is why I quit earlier this year.
Over the years, Google have been doing the same except the walls have been growing a little more slowly. One new application at a time. The walls have been growing taller, lock-in has been getting bigger and finally we'll realise that we're inside a huge dome built on Google's servers and no-one can find the windows. Then all we can do is watch everyone suffer under the immense pressure of using all of these apps and not ever getting away from Google hosted stuff.
Just like the applications in Facebook. Yes, techically they can be hosted wherever, but the users are still locked in.
This is all made even worse by the fact that Google also made something that would stop Facebook having the monopoly on external applications for users - namely in the shape of OpenSocial.
I have written before why I don't like Open Social. Before they told us what it was about, I was really looking forward to having authorised access to user data. That wasn't what OpenSocial turned out to be - which is sad - and all we got was the ability to put applications into other sites. Again, Google App Engine is like this but worse - the only site (in regards to users) all of these new apps will run in, is Google's.
So more apps, more users, more developers to write more apps which attract more users and hence ... you see my point. And that's exactly their point too (stated in the introduction).
Which is funny, because that really reminds me of something else too. Vendor lock-in - but this time replace software and file-formats with users and applications. That's about where Google is at the moment and it's only getting worse.
Luckily some other people are also concerned about this. I can only hope that what Francois said to me today comes true. That Google can get it wrong at the start and it can get better as time goes on. I hope he's right and I truly hope that Google's "Do No Evil" policy wins through in the end even if that is debatable sometimes.
What Google can do to alleviate some of this is allow more open access for users and their accounts. It's a two step process with a third note:
- become an OpenID provider and make each Google Accounts an OpenID
- become a real OpenID consumer and allow sign-ups and sign-ins to Google Accounts with OpenID
- and no, allowing OpenID comments on Blogger and providing OpenID on Blogger in Beta is not good enough
(Note: None of these things provide technical freedom from their AppEngine infrastructure but I consider the user data is more important than that.)
I'm not holding much hope out though and whatever they do, I'm sticking to my view that Google are getting too big and too strong. At some stage in the future, their dream and marketing of an Open Web will descent into an Open Web of mostly Google Accounts and Google hosted apps and that's when we'll suffer.
But what can we do?
The easiest thing is for me to do what I did with Facebook and just quit Google. But the thought of finding replacements for all those services I'm using is too much - Gmail, Reader, Calendar, Bookmarks, Analytics and a few others I use. Some of which can be easily replaced (Magnolia for Bookmarks) but others less so (Analytics?). Now I realise I'm locked in and it doesn't sit pretty.
There's not an easy solution for this and one I'm thinking very hard about at the moment.
Earlier this evening, I finished re-watching the original Star Wars trilogy so I will leave you with a quote which seems apt for this situation. From the enigmatic Han Solo:
"I've got a bad feeling about this."
And the final thought for this post; let's just hope that Google never turn to the dark side.
Labels: openid, google, walled-gardens, planet-geek, planet-catalyst, facebook, app-engine
Inserted: 2008-04-11 00:16 (3 years, 10 months ago)
Google Almost Announces OpenSocial
It seems details are leaking about Google's new OpenSocial application API.
It also looks like the launch date for Open Social will be on Thursday which is what was rumoured at the end of September.
Unfortunately for me, it doesn't sound like what I was hoping for. I was hoping that there would be Application Services, Data Services and Mashup-Services and that you could do it on your own site anywhere.
From what I can tell, the Application Services and the Data Services will be there, but the Mashup Services won't be. This is because the final point above - being able to host your services anywhere - doesn't seem to be allowed.
So far, it looks like the API is for Application Services to be embedded into the Data Services' own website. Limiting or what?
As you might be able to tell, I'm a little miffed about that since for me, the big adventure was to open up where you can host your applications/mashups and not just copy Facebook's walled-garden approach and embed all the applications within one site.
It looks like my initial look at OAuth will be the thing that now excites me most and I'm going to have to start reading a bit more about it. I feel that this can be used for what I would like to see in the real Open Social scene ...
... and what is that? ...
... that the Data is open (using proper Authentication of course), and not just that the Application API is open.
The fact that an Application API is open really just means it is a standard and nothing more than that.
Things have changed in this day and age. The application doesn't matter anymore because the web is the application. Not one site. Not a few sites, but the whole web.
And while we used to say Content is King, in reality these days Data is King, or even more specifically Social Data is King.
Over the next few days, I hope to learn a little more about Google's OpenSocial and I'm almost preying it isn't what I think it is now.
Labels: google, open-social, planet-geek, planet-catalyst, oauth, magnolia, social-graph
Inserted: 2007-11-02 10:00 (4 years, 3 months ago)
Everyone is getting into the Sharing Data Space
Ma.gnolia.com is also getting in on the act.
From a webpost on the Ma.gnolia.com blog, they are releasing a new specification called Open Authentication specification (OAuth).
The thing is though, they are calling it Open Authentication but really, it's not just authentication, it's actually also (maybe sneakily) authorisation too. Authorisation to your data, that's what.
Using Open Authentication certainly does allow one site (the web app) to confirm with another (the identity server) that you are who you say you are. But there is more to it than that...
It also allows the web app to gain access - on your say-so of course - to your private data on the identity server.
(As an aside, I think that Open Authentication, or OAuth, is actually a misnomer and really should be named something else.)
This can be most easily thought of as an example where a photograph printing site wants access to a user's images at their favourite image sharing site.
This OAuth specification is along the same lines as quite a number of different specifications which allow for authentication and authorisation of data access which are vying for adoption throughout the rest of the web. Much like what I said last week about the possibility of Google opening out their authentication/authorisation, it'll be interesting from here on in and the good thing is, if there is enough people looking at the problem and creating solutions, the best one will probably win - or maybe the biggest one.
One thing I forgot to mention in last week's post is about the type of data that can be shared. For example, having Ma.gnolia as your identify server and your data manager will give you access to your bookmarks from other web apps if given authorisation, but from this provider, that's all you can get at - since that's all they keep.
Opposed to this is some new abilities within Google Mashups which allow you to store any type of data against each user. When it was first released, you could only access the \c{${app}} variable (I need to confirm this) but now there is a \c{${user}} variable too.
So again, this is another step along the road where you'll actually be able to create and store anything with anyone and access it from anywhere, on the assumption that Google's new API allows this.
That's a lot of options and very much inline with the true spirit of the web.
Life is good.
Labels: google, planet-geek, planet-catalyst, magnolia, social-graph
Inserted: 2007-10-05 16:05 (4 years, 4 months ago)
I Can't Believe I Didn't See this Before
Things are looking good in the 'open' social networking scene.
For a while now, I've been interested in OpenID, open sharing of information and also the social graph everyone is talking about.
Heck, I even told a (non-geek) friend of mine the other day that 'information wants to be free'. He was laughing at me - very hard (hi Dave).
As it turns out, all the different thoughts and plans lots of people all over the globe have been having about how to open the social network out will all be pushed aside if this happens.
The interesting thing is though, even though it might turn out to be a big launch for Google, I think they've already started with the opening out of their GData JavasScript Client Library of Calendar. And we're promised, more of their Application API's to come.
The difference between this client library and the preceding ones is that it allows anyone to mashup an application of theirs to be writable as well as readable. What this means is anyone out there on the internet can now 'program' Google's Applications using a JavaScript library. The aim of GData in the first place was to standardised their internal applications this way so it's no surprise it's now writable.
The main point about this write thing is that, to be able to write to something of yours (yes, you own it, it's your data), that means the application has to know who you are - which is authentication.
So hang on let's recap:
- random website (example.com) wants to create an application using your calendar and your friends as source data - let's say a birthday party invitation application
- they mash something together on their own website (example.com/party-invitation.html)
- you connect up, say you're andychilton_at_gmail.com and they ask Google to confirm this
- you're confirmed and you also allow the Party Invitation site to access (some of) your personal data
- you create a party, it gets added to your calendar and invites gets sent out to all your friends
Does it sound like Facebook to anyone?
Yes, but there is one big difference. To create an application, you don't have to do it inside Google as you do with Facebook, you can just go ahead and do it.
That sounds like progress to me :-)
Two other things we need to consider are authentication and the personal data we're talking about.
For authentication we already have OpenID which can say that you are the owner of this particular identity. So maybe November 5th is the big day for Google giving all of their accounts users an OpenID (yay!) Even though they don't need it and their APIs won't use it, it would be really nice of them to do it.
So, the personal data that will be used in these PWMU's (Private Writable Mash-Ups) that might be used by an application may come from Google... BUT, and this is the best bit, I suspect that anyone in the world will also able to create an application which has a PWMU API which implements all the necessary features that the GData API does.
So, finally, what does this actually mean.
It means that anyone can provide an Authentication service, anyone can be a Data service and anyone can create a Personal Writable Mash-Up service.
Sounds like decentralised control of everything - which is exactly what the proponents of the Open Social Graph problem want.
The fact that OpenID creator Brad Fitzpatrick now works for Google and is leading this project gives me even more confidence that things will go in the right direction. As the techcrunch article above states, if Facebook is 98% open, then Google will be 100% open.
And let me finish on a more personal note. I've been planning on adding OpenID to Zaapt and hence KiwiWriters in the next couple of months but let's just imagine some other possibilities. We could create an application which implements a Work In Progress API which allows you to read/write you WIP information from any mashup site. Let's say that in the future people decide to move away from KiwiWriters (let's hope not), then they can copy/move the data that they own to another site which implements the WIP API. This means that the user is free to choose the best provider they see fit AND they actually have the ability to do it. Talk about keeping providers on their toes :-)
P.S. Most of the second half of this post is speculation about what will happen, but yeah, either way, it's going to be very interesting.
Labels: openid, google, planet-geek, planet-catalyst, facebook, social-graph
Inserted: 2007-09-28 10:47 (4 years, 4 months ago)
If Google Ever Does Linux
For ages and ages, people have said that Google will do 'their own' Linux. But the question is, why will they do it and will it work?
As far as I'm concerned, if Google ever does their own Linux, then I don't think it will make as big a splash as everyone makes out it will. Let's look at some history of Linux distros I think are applicable here and we'll see why it won't work.
A few years ago, Sun announced the Java Desktop. Yes, it was aimed at big multinational corporations but really, how much of a dint did it make. Sun's reason for making it - push Java onto everyone, no matter what they said back then, that was the plan. In reality, no-one at home wanted it and let's face it, the geeks rule this nest and that's why it didn't catch on.
Lindows, then renamed to Linspire, have had some success but their message was - "Let's make Linux like Windows". Again, the geeks don't want it even though it's not aimed at them, so it will eventually fail.
SuSe (under Novell) now seem directed at the "let's work with Windows" thing. Yes, this will fail to, for the same reasons as above and the fact that they dumped a whole pile of sh*t on themselves. Oh, and the geeks don't trust Novell anymore.
Linux distros don't succeed if they aim at the corporate world, especially the corporate desktop, at least not yet anyway.
But then, neither do they succeed if they aim at the non-technical home user, as Linspire shows.
However, what does work are the general purpose Linux distros that can be put to a multitude of tasks and don't force you to go in one direction. Debian, Ubuntu and Redhat all fall into this category and they are the most successful of all (to varying degrees of whatever your successful means). Any of these distros can be put to use on the corporate desktop, the corporate server, the slightly technical home user and all kinds of uses for the most important, the geeks. Ubuntu claims the crown of the most diverse uses with it's certified server editions, LTS editions and it's desktop editions and it is this distro which looks most likely to succeed on the corporate desktop too.
So let's get back to what will Google do with 'their' Linux?
That's easy - they want you to use the internet.
For searching, for email, for storing your documents, your bookmarks and notes, your diary, your contacts and pretty soon, almost everything you ever wished for, including word processing, spreadsheet and presentation documents.
And this applies to both home users and the corporate world, as their apps prove - already being used for large universities and other organisations.
So to have all of this internet stuff going on, what will they do?
They will make the browser the number one application in the distro, that's what. I would even think that they will build in a remote data store and remote backup (to their servers of course) to get into the realm of your personal documents too. For example, what about storing your photos (they've already done that) or your music collection (what this space). How about your videos (a variation of YouTube anyone)?
So what does this mean for the rest of the imaginary 'Google Linux'?
Well, it means that it'll be cut down. Or at least it'll cut things out. I mean, why would they put a native email client on there when they want you to use Gmail? Why would they install OpenOffice if you can use their online docs? And why would you even put your bookmarks in your browser if they can do that for you too!
Maybe they will let you do these things but my guess is that they won't be installed by default and of course, only the more experienced bods will be able to install them anyway. This leaves everyone else using the Google OS as a proxy to the Google services and it'll be like AOL taking over your computer all over again.
Therefore, in conclusion, I think if Google ever do an OS of their own it will go two ways depending on how they push it. If they push it like above, then it will fail. The geeks won't like it (and let's face it, they're already divided about Google anyway). If they make it generic, add some niceties and maybe even with lots of goodies to interact with their services, then I think it will succeed. If the geeks like it (which Google does aim to please), then it will work.
I do hope they don't push their own services too far at the expense of the rest, that's all I'm saying. Personally, I like Google and their services but I just hope they don't try to become both the computer AND the internet, otherwise people will move on. We're very fickle you know :-)
Inserted: 2007-06-26 23:17 (4 years, 7 months ago)
Using Sitemaps on Yahoo!
I have used Google Sitemaps for well over a year, even before they were standardised across search engines. In the spirit of freedom to index, I've claimed the KiwiWriters.org site on Yahoo! Sitemaps too. Let the battle begin.
The problem is, the Yahoo! Sitemaps (or should I say 'Site Explorer') just doesn't have as clear an interface as the Google one does. Neither does it have as many features. It does provide some that Google doesn't but not much.
Maybe I'll go into a discussion one day about the differences, but for now I'll leave it there.
Anyway, at least Kiwi Writers should be indexed properly by Yahoo! now. It's been a few days already so maybe I'll give it a few more.
Labels: google, sitemap, yahoo
Inserted: 2007-03-11 17:07 (4 years, 11 months ago)
My Own Search Engine
Not really mine, but a Google Customisation
A lot of times, I want to be able to search photographers portfolios. I chance upon them, but want a way to search them afterwards, to find that picture of a place I've been or a place I want to see.
Of course, being able to do this up until now has been hard.
Enter Google's \[p]{new|http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/eureka-your-own-search-engine-has.html} \[p]{Custom Search Engine|http://google.com/coop/cse}.
Anyway, I'm hoping that lots of people suggest new sites to add since it has a limited selection at the moment, Apart from the initial list of five sites, I can't seem to be able to add more - though I think they are going through some teething difficulties to be honest.
But it certainly looks promising for the future.
Inserted: 2006-10-24 22:58 (5 years, 3 months ago)
I want my Google Juice back
About a month ago my server had network problems and I lost my Google Juice. Now I want it back.
For about 4 days my site was inaccessible and straight away Google showed that there were less pages indexed from my site. At the moment of course, I have very modest statics since the site has only been going a couple of months, but it said at one stage that about 50 pages were indexed.
A few days ago, it said that about 20 pages were being indexed and now it's up to 30.
There may be another reason for this though and I suspect my server outage was a bit of a red-herring. In between these times I have been away and had only updated my blog the once, so I suspect that was also partly (mostly?) to blame.
So the moral of the story is "though shalt update the website regularly" - which we all kinda knew anyway. Best to learn it the hard way I suppose.
P.S. Just found the term "Google Juice" on \[p]{Jeremy Visser|http://narnia.bounceme.net/jeremy/2006/09/27/downtime/}'s blog which prompted me to write this.
Labels: google, easy-speedy
Inserted: 2006-09-27 19:54 (5 years, 4 months ago)
Google Sitemaps is Slightly Suspicious of Me
I submitted a sitemap to Google Sitemaps and confirmed that I owned the site. But wait, what's this obscure request...
To try out \[p]{Google Sitemaps|https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/login}, I firstly had to prove that I was the owner of this site. They gave me a URL of the form http://kapiti.geek.nz/google################.html where each # was a number or letter.
A while after I put the page on the site and Google had verified it, I looked in the server logs to see at what time it had been requested. Immediately after the page was requested, another request for the page http://kapiti.geek.nz/noexist_################.html was also there, which obviously gave a 404.
I think they are being slightly suspicious of servers which return a page for any URL requested which I guess is what the noexist request is to stop. Anyway, that kinda made me smile thinking that my server was doing the right thing.
As for the Sitemap itself, well I used the Perl Module \[p]{XML::Mini|http://minixml.psychogenic.com/} which is quite nice in a funny way. I thought that this Google Sitemap Generator would be good for a module, so I looked on \[p]{CPAN|http://www.cpan.org} - lo and behold, there already is one by \[p]{Jason Kohles|http://search.cpan.org/search?query=Google%3A%3ASiteMap&mode=module}.
Ah well (but that's a good thing).
Labels: perl, google, xml, kapiti-geek-nz
Inserted: 2006-08-12 15:58 (5 years, 6 months ago)